Right-wing ridicule can’t stop ‘No Kings’ momentum | Opinion
Thousands of Kansans and millions of Americans took to the streets over the weekend for the third “No Kings” protest directed at President Donald Trump.
And conservative media and social media immediately mobilized to try to discredit, demean and dismiss the protesters’ entirely valid concerns that we do not live in a country as free and democratic as it once was.
The awards for most misleading post — and biggest self-own — go to (drum roll please) Andy Hooser, Wichita-based syndicated right-wing talk show host and vice chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.
Hooser, whose show runs locally on radio station KQAM, claimed credit for a national report purporting to show big money behind the “No Kings” protest.
“We broke this story on the show this weekend,” he posted. “500 groups. $3 Billion to make the ‘No Kings’ protests look like a ‘grassroots’ movement. Follow the money. And watch the organized opposition express their faux rage.”
Saying he “broke” that story is more than a little misleading. It actually originated with Fox News.
And even they didn’t have the spine to claim that anybody actually spent $3 billion organizing Saturday’s protest. The $3 billion they cited was the total annual revenues of every labor union and activist group that supported the protests nationwide.
And while $3 billion may sound like a lot of money to you and me, it’s couch-cushion change compared to the net worth of Trump-loving tech and media bros like Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX and X), $815 billion; Jeff Bezos (Amazon and Washington Post), $224 billion; Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), $194 billion; and Larry Ellison (Oracle, Paramount and CBS), $186 billion — figures according to Forbes.com.
Hooser also posted a meme of cartoon character Homer Simpson with a dumb expression and the caption “LOOK AT ME! I’M GONNA STAND IN THE ROAD AND PROTEST A KING THAT DOESN’T EXIST IN AMERICA.”
It’s a self-own because the cartoon image is nearly identical to the time that Trump contorted himself to mock the physical disability of a reporter he didn’t like.
Right wing needs new material
The award for least original conspiracy theory goes to John Whitmer, right-wing talk show host on KNSS and chairman of the Sedgwick County Republican Party.
He posted a list of random Craigslist ads from Los Angeles last summer reading “NO KINGS! ANTI-TRUMP PROTEST SALES TEAM . . . CASH PAID!”
“Seeing a number of posts about the local NO Kings protests today, wonder how much THEY were paid?” he asked.
The obvious answer was nothing. Trump’s delusion that the people protesting him are “paid agitators” has been debunked more times than anyone can count. You simply don’t need to pay people to protest Trump.
But this time it was another conservative, Bob Weeks from the Voice of Liberty blog, who put Whitmer in his place.
Weeks tracked down the ads and found that the business involved wasn’t hiring protesters, it was hiring people to sell anti-Trump swag to the protesters — just like the people in pop-up tents around Trump rallies sell MAGA gear, and also get paid.
And finally, a Facebook friend of mine who shall remain nameless because he’s not really a public figure, posed this question: “Who else thinks the ‘no kings’ movement is THE most stupid, senseless and irrational waste of time EVER?”
Bro, get a hold of yourself. It wasn’t even the most stupid, senseless and irrational waste of time last weekend.
That award goes to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas.
CPAC stumbles in Texas
For the first time in 10 years, Trump didn’t show, nor did any of his family, and CPAC was headlined by a random group of B- and C-list bigots, authoritarians and influencers.
The biggest name at the gathering was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s secretary of bad diet advice, weird conspiracy theories and bear-cub-carcass abuse. What a get!
The most noteworthy thing that happened at CPAC 2026 was a viral video, featuring Wichita favorite son and CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp, asking the audience “How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?” and the crowd broke out cheering.
Obviously taken aback, Schlapp said: “No. That was the wrong answer.”
Maybe it’s not the wrong answer.
I know a few thousand Kansans hoping for exactly that after the midterm elections in November — and some of them voted for Trump.
Setting aside the roughly one-third of the country that backs Trump no matter what, the American people are angry.
Angry about higher prices when they were promised lower inflation.
Angry that a self-described “president of peace” started his own billion-dollar-a-seat “peace board,” and then immediately started a war that’s spreading chaos across the Middle East and the world’s economy.
Angry about ICE claiming to target “the worst of the worst” for deportation, while masked agents spread terror in our cities and fill their arrest quota sheets with hotel maids, busboys, roofers, fruit pickers and 5-year-olds.
Angry at a president who constantly threatens and insults our longtime allies, squandering our hard-earned reputation as the world’s “good guys” going all the way back to World War I.
Angry about our citizenship and voting rights being threatened.
That anger is finding its voice right now. It found it Saturday in the streets of Wichita, and Kansas City, and about 3,300 other cities and towns across the country.
The hardest thing for conservatives to understand is that the “No Kings” protests aren’t about any one thing.
They’re about everything.
So to my conservative friends, laugh at them all you want. We’ll see who’s laughing in November.
